On our way to Hualien

Beginning our vacation from vacation we left Hsinchu and headed north towards Taipei then east to Hualien. The road east took us through a tunnel 13km long that took 8 years to complete. It connects Taipei directly to the east coast without having to travel over mountains or through small villages on poor roads. Fortunately for travelers, this expedites the journey from west coast to east, but the economic impact this new route has made on all of the small villages that are located on the original road is devastating.

Before knowing about this tunnel, Gary had asked me about the road systems in northern Minnesota. I proudly told him about the tunnels on I-35 created to preserve the view of Lake Superior and to aid in the creation of the Rose Garden/Lakewalk area. I also told him about the two beautiful tunnels along the North Shore. Up to this point in our travels, we had gone through a couple of tunnels in Taiwan so at the time I felt that our tunnels measured up quite nicely for their asthetics and design. When Gary mentioned the 13km tunnel, I quickly did conversions in my head and gulped...suddenly I-35 and the North Shore didn't seem quite as impressive!

We stopped in Suao on the east coast for lunch. Suao is a commercial fishing town with many seafood restaurants located on the wharf. We had an amazing lunch that Connie ordered for us right out of the fish tanks and I was quite surprised at how inexpensive our meal was. The restaurant was your basic mom/pop operation with many of them one after another on the wharf. Employees would stand in the small street directing cars to parking spots right outside their restaurants - often the cars would be parked two or three deep!

Seafood in Taiwan is real seafood...with arms, legs, and eyeballs left intact. After biting into a shrimp, some dark liquid could potentially dribble down your chin. This dark liquid is internal stuff that I really didn't care to hear the description of - the shrimp was very tasty without thinking too much about the brown stuff!

This purple squid was pretty tasty with a texture of al dente pasta. The soup - which always follows the main meal - was a clear broth with shredded vegetable greens and white pieces that looked like rice. After closer inspection, we realized that the white pieces were actually tiny, almost microscopic fish!